What little color was left in Majors’s face drained away.
“Yes, the young boy in Rio.” He spoke for a few moments to Paulo in Portuguese, then said, “Paulo says that if he had been given every dime you had earned, it would not repay him for the loss of his son. And it would not buy one second of the pain you inflicted on his boy.”
“It’s true,” said Pierre. “But I appreciate the chance to have a revenge denied to me for the loss of my nephew. He will not remember the young boy from Minnesota, will he? My sister couldn’t live with what happened to him. She felt responsible for not guarding him closer, for letting him fall into this one’s filthy hands. She killed herself. So I owe him for two lives, you see.”
“You asked me the name of the resort,” Alberto said. “I told you chapulín means grasshopper, but the word has another meaning-trickster. Last year, in late August, a sweet and innocent boy-Justino’s cousin, my only child-went to the city of Oaxaca. He went with his older cousins to sell chapulínes-chili grasshoppers-a local delicacy. They had caught the grasshoppers the night before and prepared them to sell on the streets that morning.”
“He did not return,” Emil said, “which is not exactly the same as saying he was not seen again.” He paused. “We cannot, of course, do anything to a grown man that would equal your cruelty to those children.”
“But we’ll try,” Conrad said, smiling.
They held him down while the one called Paulo began his elaborate design. He began on the tender nipples of Majors’s chest. A five, Majors saw, in one of the moments of rest. They paused every now and then so that he didn’t become too accustomed to the pain, so that the anticipation of it would stay fresh. He tried to think of why it was a five. Did they believe he had killed only five boys? He asked-politely, really-but they would not reply to anything he said.
Except once.
He found a little bravado at one point and said, “I’m surprised you didn’t put the tattoo on my balls. The chest isn’t such a painful place to get one.”
Emil looked at him and said coolly, “But you will keep your chest.”
It was the last time anyone spoke directly to him. When the tattooing was finished, Alberto, Paulo, and Pierre left. He began to hope it was over.
Emil and Conrad waited-for what period of time, he couldn’t judge.
The lights came on again. A stand of camera lights, he saw now. Emil and Conrad donned hoods and turned the camera on.
They said the names of his victims as they did their work.
They knew there were more than five.
21
Sandia Peak, New Mexico
Tuesday, May 20, 5:04 P.M.
Frederick nearly lost sight of Meghan while trying to ditch the woman he had been kissing.
“We won’t be leaving for another hour,” the woman said to him, gazing up at him, her lips swollen.
A good kisser, he thought, with a little regret. If he weren’t on a mission, he was sure he could have taken her somewhere semi-secluded and given her the best sex she’d ever had in her life. God knew she was hot for it. He admitted to himself that he was hot for her, too. Well, at least he had her number-he’d see if he had any juice left when he was done boning Meghan. He glanced up to see Meghan walking into the Peak Experience Restaurant, then smiled down at the woman who clung to him.
“Sorry, boyakina, business before pleasure.”
She laughed. “Did you just call me your ‘spoon rest’?”
He turned her around and pressed his crotch against her backside. He wrapped his arms across her chest, moving his hands inside her jacket, brushing his thumbs over her nipples with practiced care, then pulling at them a little as they responded. Breathing gently into her ear, he whispered, “Boyakina, because I like spooning with you. Do you mind if I call you that?”
“No,” she said breathlessly.
He laughed softly and released her, setting her a little apart from him. “Now go on, join the others. What time do you think you’ll be back home and ready for company after the hike?”
She was dazed, but answered, “Midnight, maybe a little earlier.”
He smiled and said, “Then, we’ll end our masquerade at midnight, all right?”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she said.
He checked his temper and transformed his expression into one of deep disappointment. “You don’t trust me, do you? Of course not. I can’t blame you, really. It’s just that I had hoped you were feeling-”
“Oh! Of course I do! I’m sorry! Please-I won’t say another word. I’m going. I’m going right now.”
She smiled-bravely, he thought-and turned to walk off to join the others. While her back was turned, he hurriedly moved out of sight. He was afraid she might try to enact a prolonged scene, and he wondered how much Meghan might be able to see from the windows of the restaurant. He remembered that Meghan had dinner reservations at the restaurant, so he knew where she’d be for at least another forty-five minutes or more. It would be worth hiding near the tram platform for a few of those minutes, just to make sure he wouldn’t be followed by his latest conquest. He spent most of this time fantasizing about what Meghan would look like naked and completely under his control.
“Why do we have to wait in here for her?” Spooky asked. The words were a little distorted. She had polished off her third Shirley Temple and was, for the third time, trying to tie a knot in a maraschino cherry stem using only her tongue.
Thirteen, Kit thought to himself. “Because this is where she’s expecting to meet us.”
He kept his eyes moving, staying aware of the other patrons in the restaurant, watching those who seemed to be watching the door. He was out of cell phone range, so he couldn’t check to see if she had made it safely to the tram. He considered using a pay phone to call the man who had been sent to guard Meghan, but he decided to wait a few more minutes.
Spooky took a loosely knotted stem from her mouth in triumph, then complained that he wasn’t paying attention. When that didn’t prove effective, she said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
He glanced at the restaurant doors and then at his watch. Meghan was running a little late. Should he go out to the platform? Try calling her cell phone? Maybe he’d call her while Spooky was in the bathroom. “Okay. But promise me two things-”
“Let me guess. I won’t rob anyone in the restroom,” she said impatiently. “And I won’t start any fires.”
“Thanks. Hurry, all right?”
She frowned, said, “Why should I? Your girlfriend’s not in any hurry.”
She then strolled off at a leisurely pace. He knew he had doomed himself-she’d take as long as possible now.
In the next moment, his thoughts were completely distracted from Spooky. Meghan Taggert walked into the restaurant.
He had wondered if she would look different. She did. She wasn’t the teenaged Meghan whose image he held in his mind, or the girl in half a dozen cherished photos taken during visits to her family’s home when he was in high school with her brother. She had matured from the pretty girl every boy in Malibu had wanted to date to a woman who, dressed in blue jeans, a loose sweater, and hiking boots, radiated elegance and an indefinable something, a quality of which Kit could already see the usual effects: women studying her with slight frowns on their faces, men with drinks half-lifted to their mouths-halted mid-action as they stared.
If she was aware of these effects, she didn’t reveal it in any way. She scanned the room as if its population didn’t exist, then saw him and smiled.
He was glad he didn’t have a drink in his hand.
He stood and began walking toward her, and her smile widened, and he found himself smiling back. As he came nearer, he saw that she was opening her arms, and he realized she was going to hug him, so he quickly forced his mind to put up one of the mental partitions that he built whenever he needed to cope with what at times seemed to him an embrace-crazed society. But although no one else ever had noticed this slight withdrawal, she seemed to sense it immediately and changed the motion a little, so that she merely lightly touched his shoulders before dropping her arms. Her smile seemed to waver, and he felt something in the region of his chest waver with it. Then she said in her husky voice, “Kit Logan, it’s been far too long since I’ve seen you.”